Rangers 4, Mariners 3 — Seattle returns home for 11-game homestand

And yet it in the end, the Mariners had their chance to win that game.

It was a lost opportunity. Instead of finishing the road trip with a winning record, they went 2-3 and fell to 22-23 on the season.

“I thought it was a good game,” manager Lloyd McClendon said. “We played well. We battled a lot of the elements and we came out on the short end. I thought our guys gave us a great effort today.”‘

Young looked out of sorts to start the game. He walked Daniel Robertson to lead off the game and promptly gave up a two-run home to Elvis Andrus. He then gave up three more singles to score another run. It looked like a disaster was building but he managed to get out of trouble with a fielder’s choice, a walk, a strikeout and a ground out.

“I just didn’t have my rhythm in that first inning,” he said. “I dug us in a hole and it was too deep of a hole.”

How did he find try and find that rhythm?

“You just stay with it and keep going,” he said. “You just try and find it. Over the course of the season, you have those games. And if you can limit the damage early, you feel like you can pitch a good game. I just gave up one too many in the first.”

Seattle tied the game in the fourth inning. James Jones led off the inning with a triple to left-center, extending his hitting streak to 11 games. Michael Saunders scored Jones on a single up the middle. Robinson Cano followed with his second home run of the season, belting a line drive over the wall in dead center field to tie the game at 3-3. Both of Cano’s home runs this season have come in Globe Life Park.

After having a handful of hard hit balls hit the fence on the fly and just miss being homers, Cano wasn’t certain the ball was gone.

“I knew I hit it pretty good, but you never know,” Cano said. “It was a line drive. And it was windy out. I finally got one out.”

Young had retired seven straight batters before giving up the game-ahead winning run on a solo homer to Shin Soo-Choo on a 0-2 slider to start the fifth inning. Off the bat, it looked like a fly ball. But it just kept carrying and carrying in hot Texas winds until landed in the Mariners’ bullpen.

“I thought it was a decent pitch,” Young said. “Some places it’s not (a homer), but it is here. If it was a better pitch, maybe he doesn’t hit it out. I thought it was pretty good pitch, but it wasn’t since he’s a very good hitter. You tip your hat, but unfortunately it cost us the game.”

Perhaps, but the Mariners had plenty of chances to tie the game and couldn’t get the big hit.

With one out and runners on first and second in the seventh inning, McClendon called on Stefen Romero to pinch hit for Brad Miller. The move didn’t go as planned as Romero ground to Adrian Beltre, who stepped on third and fired to first for the double play.

“You aren’t going to get a hit every time with runners in scoring position,” McClendon said.

In the eighth inning, James Jones drew a lead-off walk and Saunders sacrifice bunted him into score position. But Rangers reliever Neal Cotts was able to strike out both Cano and Kyle Seager to end the inning. Cotts got a little help with some questionable strike calls on both hitters from home plate umpire Jeff Kellogg.

Cano was very unhappy with the 2-1 slider that looked off the plate but was called a strike. If forced him to be defensive and swing at a pitch out of the zone on 2-2.

“Because you don’t know what he’s going to call,” Cano said.

Cano, Seager and McClendon all had other stuff to say off the record but they weren’t pleased.